CHRISTINE: From the New York Times, you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.
CAIRA: Hey everyone, it’s The Wirecutter Show. I’m Caira Blackwell.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin and we work at Wirecutter, the product recommendation site from the New York Times.
CHRISTINE: Each week, we bring you expert advice from our newsroom of 140 journalists who review everyday products that will make your life better. This episode of The Wirecutter Show is called Finding Affordable Gifts.
ROSIE: Caira, Christine, we’re here, it’s December. Can you believe it?
CHRISTINE: Ah, wow. We made it here.
CAIRA: We made it through Thanksgiving. Did you end up buying any holiday gifts over Black Friday?
CHRISTINE: No. I usually boycott the sales at Black Friday unless I find something really perfect and I didn’t find anything this year. You?
ROSIE: You didn’t find anything even sort of quotidian?
CHRISTINE: Did I get another 15 pound bag?
ROSIE: Just thinking, gosh. Cat food or?
CHRISTINE: Cat litter? No, I did not buy any cat litter this Black Friday.
ROSIE: Personally, I find this time of year to be a little stressful because there are so many people I need to get gifts for. I got my kids, I got my wife, I got my family. Smaller gifts for co-workers and friends, co-workers. Do you all have a lot of people that you need to buy gifts for this year?
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I do. I have a lot of nieces and nephews. I’ve got my kids, I got my husband. I don’t do a huge amount of gifting beyond that, but I do like to take little holiday gifts to friends’ houses if they’re hosting parties. I’m also somebody that gets stressed out around this time because I like to make sure that I’m staying within the budget that I’m shooting to spend and it can start to feel like a snowball. You’re like, oh, but I… I know there’s this impulse of I am not good enough, so I need to buy more and give more.
ROSIE: There’s a tip buried in there actually which is, set a budget. Because I think, years ago, I wouldn’t do that and I would keep finding things I wanted to get that I really liked and then at the end of the month I’m like, ooh, my credit card.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, you’re tabulating what you spent, and you’re like, ooh, that’s a bad surprise.
CAIRA: Honestly, I’ve given up on buying gifts for people unless I really feel like I am obligated to, but I just feel like I come from a really big family and nobody seems to worry about gifts, so I’m not going to either. Maybe sometimes we’ll all pull together and get one person a gift, and we do that once a year for different people, but I just don’t let it stress me out anymore, essentially.
ROSIE: Well, I will say Wirecutter is a great place to go, and I’m not saying that just because we’re speaking on The Wirecutter Show.
CHRISTINE: Yes, you are. But it is actually true. We have an entire team of people that spend all year looking for gifts. They go to trade shows, they’re scouring the internet, they’re going to interesting brick and mortar stores, and they’re bringing that stuff into their homes, into our offices, testing them out, it’s just a great resource. We’ve got a ton of gift guides and a lot of these gifts that we have on the site right now are actually affordable. Under 25, under 50, under a 100, awesome, beautiful, tasteful things that I feel totally secure and happy to give.
CAIRA: Yeah, our gift team is so great. They just know so much and they have so many good ideas and they’re just constantly searching for these beautiful specific gifts. They’re really thinking about the strategies around gifting itself. So, we’re actually going to do something a little bit different today. There’s so much to talk about that we’re going to do two full episodes on gifting. Today we’re bringing in one of the masterminds behind our gift coverage, Hannah Morrill, who is a supervising editor of our gift coverage. She leads a team of gift writers who are basically doing market research all year round. She’s going to walk us through some of the basic principles for gift giving with a special emphasis on how to really find great affordable gifts, just the smaller stuff.
CHRISTINE: And then next week we’re going to talk with another one of our colleagues, writer Samantha Shea, who has amazing taste, I love, love, love the things that she chooses for our gift guides, and she is going to take our listeners questions about their hardest to gift for people. People send us all these great voice memos and we’re going to put her in the hot seat and have her solve the problems for our listeners, so that’ll be next week.
ROSIE: And also, if you haven’t signed up for The Gift, Wirecutter’s newest newsletter, you don’t want to miss it. It’s a weekly newsletter all about great gift ideas year round, and you can sign up for that at nytimes.com/thegift.
CHRISTINE: We’re going to take a break and then when we’re back we’ll talk with Hannah Morrill about the dos and don’ts of buying affordable gifts.
CHRISTINE: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show with us now is Hannah Morrill, who is the supervising editor overseeing all of Wirecutter’s gift coverage, and she also oversees a team of writers that hunt for gifts nearly every day of the year. I don’t know how they do it, but they’re amazing at it. Hannah, welcome to The Wirecutter Show.
HANNAH: Hey guys, I’m so happy to be here.
CHRISTINE: I’m so happy you’re here too. So Hannah, you oversee all of our gift coverage, which includes what? like more than 50 guides at this point, right?
HANNAH: We do. I was just looking at it. I think we’re like up to 70 now.
CHRISTINE: Wow, that’s wild. Do you have to buy a lot of gifts? Do you have kids? Do you have lots of family members you’re buying gifts for?
HANNAH: So I have two young children and I have a partner. We don’t exchange presents throughout– and I’m also not, even though I am the gifts editor, I’m not into rampant capitalism and buying a gift for every person for every reason. I think I have more adopted when the spirit moves you gifting, if you have something great in mind. Some years I give our neighbors a gift, if something comes to me that I think would be amazing and then some years I don’t give our neighbors a gift.
CAIRA: I think it’s nice to hear that there’s hope for the rest of us that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel If you really want to get into gifts, there is a way that you can be good at it and it won’t stress you out anymore.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, exactly. You just need some practice and maybe some good tips.
ROSIE: I think another way of maybe thinking about it is, just thoughtfulness, mindfulness throughout the year.
CHRISTINE: Hannah, for the purposes of this conversation, I’m curious, what do you consider to be an affordable gift? And I know that’s a little bit relative based on who you’re gifting to, but just generally speaking.
HANNAH: I mean, I guess now having been so entrenched in the market, I think you can get great gifts for under $25, a 100%. Nice gifts for the most important people in your life for under $25. I think that that is affordable.
CHRISTINE: I love to hear that.
HANNAH: That sound right?
ROSIE: That sounds actually very encouraging.
CHRISTINE: That sounds amazing.
CAIRA: That sounds great.
HANNAH: Okay, great.
CHRISTINE: So Hannah, let’s talk about some of the strategies you use when you’re shopping for gifts. I know you’ve got some dos and don’ts for us. We’re going to go through them one by one, but let’s just start with the dos.
HANNAH: Okay, so over the last, I think three coming up on four years of gifting. I come by them honestly. They’re really the things that we find really work. So these are the dos, looking for true value in an item, not just something that’s cheap, that’s number one. Number two is playing with size, scale, or shape. That one sounds confusing, but we’ll explain it later. Number three is finding something that’s truly novel, something you haven’t seen before, and number four is upgrade to a utilitarian thing, preferably something beautiful. Those are our four dos that I think are great strategies.
CHRISTINE: Let’s just start off by looking for real value. What does that actually mean?
HANNAH: Something we’ve done at Wirecutter is we really look at the gifts that people are responding to the most. We have a lot of data and something that we found in our gift guides that have a really sharp price point. So under 25, under 50, under a 100 is… A great gift under 25 isn’t something that you would expect to be $25. It’s something that has a great value at $25, if that makes sense.
So, an example of this is actually in the under a 100 category. This year we’ve seen real success with this BAGGU carry-on bag that’s $72 and this is a carry-on bag, it’s like a weekender. it’s beautiful, it’s stylish, it’s trendy. It’s from a great company that we love and it’s $72. That’s really good value for a carry-on bag. Alternately, we have in that same guide, we threw it in there, one of our favorite towels, this Turkish incredible towel. Nobody’s clicking on the Turkish incredible towel.
A $100 towel is not a great value, that’s not a great sharp price point gift. So, I think when you’re thinking about these affordable gifts, you want to be thinking about would the person think this costs $25 or does it seem like it would cost a lot more than $25 to get something this great? That is a good sign. That again, the light bulb should go off in your mind, probably my recipient will feel the same way and it probably has a great value.
CHRISTINE: And I know from working with the gifts team for many years that you also never recommend anything that feels or looks cheap. It’s got to be nice basically.
HANNAH: Absolutely not. You’ve got it, exactly.
CHRISTINE: So we’ve covered getting great value for the gift. So let’s move to the second strategy, and I love this that your team really looks at playing with size, scale, and shape of gifts. It’s almost like subverting expectations.
HANNAH: Yeah. And this is really interesting working at Wirecutter because Wirecutter is so practical and so many of our colleagues are working on these beats and coming up with these products that everyone could use them, everyone would want them, but they don’t all make great gifts and that’s because a gift does inherently need to be something you wouldn’t buy yourself. There’s different pressures on a gift. It needs to have this surprise and delight factor, and a way that we found is a shortcut to that surprise and delight factor is, as you say, playing with size and scale of things.
Last year in our stocking stuffer gift guide, we found a gift that really was awesome, was like an itty bitty card game of the game Uno, just because it was tiny, but you could still play it. That really sparked this joy in people. We’ve also had a lot of fun this year. One of our favorite things is this really beautiful and incredible and yummy that our kitchen team loves, Spanish potato chips, but they come in a huge paint can fun, a pretty paint can.
ROSIE: I saw a social video of our team with the cooking, the New York Times cooking team tasting those chips and they’re delicious.
HANNAH: Oh, really?
ROSIE: Yeah.
HANNAH: I love that. Yeah, they’re so fun and anyone would love to receive that gift, but if you rolled up to someone’s house with just a bag of Lays, it wouldn’t quite have the same sort of punch, but I feel like you could blow anyone away with a paint can of delectable chips. Our kitchen team also loves the Maldon sea salt, and that also comes in almost a beach pail sized container.
ROSIE: I would love that gift. I use so much Maldon.
CHRISTINE: How long do you expect that to last? It’s a lot of salt.
HANNAH: That would last my family maybe a year. A lot of butter and salt in my family. So that’s like the scale thing. So a teeny set of Uno, a big thing of salt or chips. So that’s what I mean about size or scale. And then the other thing we’ve seen people just seem to really respond to are things that look like other things. If you want to get somebody something practical, think about it looking like something else. So a gift we had a lot of success with, and I’ve given this gift, it absolutely blew my mom out of the water a couple years ago. It’s called the Gurgle Pot and it’s a pitcher and so you could use it for flowers or you could use it for water, but it looks like a fish and when you pour it makes this little bubbling sound that is like a babbling brook or something like that. Again, it has a nice sharp price point.
People really responded to that. This year we’ve seen people really responding to this little tabletop desktop LED lamp that is squishy and looks like a duck. It’s beautiful, I know I sound insane saying a light looks like a duck and it’s great, but it actually is. It’s called the lazy duck, look it up. So things that anthropomorphize things, things that look like other things really have this charming factor. I don’t think anyone’s going out and being like, “You know what I need today? I need a pitcher that looks like a fish.” But we find that as a gift that still remains useful, that’s so fun and unexpected.
ROSIE: Yeah, I feel like that lazy duck, what is it? Do you know what the price point of that is?
HANNAH: So, it’s in our under 25, but I think it’s about 15. And the great thing about it is that again, it does not seem $15. It seems like you would get it at MoMA and it has a little vibe.
ROSIE: I totally agree. I’ve only seen pictures of it, but it does look like something a little bit more designy and my kids have responded to it. They’ve been like, oh my gosh, that’s so cute and I feel like…
HANNAH: It’s really cute.
ROSIE: Yeah, I feel like it’d be a really good Secret Santa or White Elephant gift.
CHRISTINE: Or a nightlight for your kids.
ROSIE: Or a nightlight, for sure.
CHRISTINE: Lots of use cases.
ROSIE: This category I describe as things that are a little cheeky. You think that’s fair?
CHRISTINE: Cheeky.
ROSIE: Right.
CHRISTINE: Great.
ROSIE: It’s a word we use a lot in our house. So the third strategy here, the third do is to find something novel. Do find something novel, something that maybe you’ve never seen before. Hannah, talk about that a little bit.
HANNAH: This is just something that nobody would have and nobody would think of because it’s literally sort of like a novel product category. And so, a real Wirecutter sort of OG gift in this category is this solar-powered rainbow maker. And I have to believe that people listening to this pod probably have this thing because I think every Wirecutter reader has bought this thing. It’s a little prism that mounts on your window and it is powered by solar power to sort of spin and reflect rainbows all around your room.
Before I even worked here, someone had gifted me one of these things. So again, no one’s going out looking for a prismatic rainbow thing to hang in your window. That’s solar-powered, but it is really lovely, it’s really high quality, it really sparks joy. Our version of that this year is one of our colleagues, Mari that’s on the gift team, she found this empty book. So it looks exactly like a book. It has a linen cover, it is indistinguishable from a book, but it opens up to be a little box to store things in. So I think that… And we see our readers really responding to that. You could put weed in there, kids could put… Throwing some ideas out there. I don’t know what…
CAIRA: Identity passports, Some loose cash and a $100 bills.
CHRISTINE: I like that, whatever. I feel like this category of novelty, I want to love it, but I also feel like this is a category where things could go really wrong. I’ve been given novel gifts in the past that I haven’t actually liked.
HANNAH: I know. I know.
CAIRA: This is not surprising. But is there maybe a rule here where you really need to know the person to give them a novelty gift or?
HANNAH: I don’t know if it’s that or if there is a usefulness element in there. The Rainbow Maker doesn’t quite hit that. I can’t explain the Rainbow Maker. The book is useful that actually most people could use that, right. Another example that we see a lot of success with is this, it’s called a Salt Pig and it’s really like a salt cellar that you could put that three pound bucket of Maldon in, or some of it in and it keeps salt that you would use with your hand from caking because it has this unglazed ceramic interior and it’s so useful, it’s pretty, but who has heard of a Salt Pig and who has a Salt Pig? So I guess what I would say rather than if you know them really well, it’s more… Is there a little thread of usefulness and it’s not just a knickknack nonsense thing. Again, Rainbow Maker, I admit falls outside that, but in general, if it is a little useful,
CHRISTINE: A rainbow maker is making rainbows, that’s useful.
HANNAH: And that’s the use, everyone needs that.
CHRISTINE: That’s right.
ROSIE: I just looked at the Salt Pig and I most certainly would not buy this for myself, but would love to be…
CHRISTINE: But would you want one?
ROSIE: Yes, would love to be gifted a Salt Pig.
HANNAH: Yeah, I worked at Wirecutter for two years and recommended it no less than 10,000 times and then last year I bought myself one, so there we go.
CAIRA: Absolutely love it.
CHRISTINE: Nobody got the hint.
HANNAH: Yeah, I know.
CAIRA: Okay, Hannah. So we’re actually down to the last category, which I think we’re calling the utilitarian upgrade. Kind of getting something that is maybe boring, but you’re adding a little spark, a little sophistication to it.
HANNAH: So this one is, shout-out to my stepdad who, I don’t know, I think there are some people on this earth who can’t get into the whimsy element of gifting and just when they’re going to buy something for someone else, it has to be practical. Do you guys have people like that in your life?
CAIRA: It’s me, I am that person, unfortunately.
HANNAH: But you can’t do it. So what’s a real practical gift that you think that you’ve given, like really practical.
ROSIE: Can I jump in and say that the practical gift that Caira has not so subtly hinted that she would like to receive is oven mitts.
CAIRA: Oh yeah, that’s true.
HANNAH: That’s not a gift, babe. That’s just like a thing that you could just go by yourself any day.
ROSIE: I’m not doing it, it’s not a gift it’s a cry for help.
CAIRA: I use kitchen towels that I set on fire on a weekly basis and that’s my routine, you can’t take it away from me.
CHRISTINE: Life can be easier Caira.
HANNAH: So what I would say to you Caira is that if you’re really looking for something you like giving and receiving utilitarian things, look for something that is beautiful and just keep it easy like that. So an example of this is I think a little power boost for your phone, a little phone bank thing is a great gift. The Wirecutter pick is a Belkin one, it’s fabulous, you could charge for a million hours, it can go anywhere. It’s lightweight, this, that. It looks like a power bank, it’s nothing special.
Deep in that guide you’ll find a link to the travel card plus one, which is as thin as a credit card, it can go in a wallet. It also can charge quite well and it comes in close to a dozen colors. I absolutely love this thing and we have that in a lot of gift guides and people respond to it. So again, you’re getting that really utilitarian element of you could use this every day, everybody could need this, but it’s like a little kicked up a notch.
CHRISTINE: I think that’s a lovely example of something I know your team does really well, which is in addition to going out into the world and looking for gifts all over the place, you’re also mining our guides where we’ve tested a bunch of stuff and maybe certain things haven’t been elevated to a top pick status, but they are still good and as a gift they could be really, really great and those might be just deeper in the guides and the average reader might not find those so easily, and so you’re elevating those.
HANNAH: We are always bone collecting in guides, we really are. That’s the first place we would look because there’s so much research behind it and then it saves us the market work. Another example are these little self-watering pots and I think they only sell them at MoMA, so it’s like a terracotta pot nested inside a glass pot. And so you would fill the glass, the part of the vessel with water, and then the terracotta would absorb what it needed is the idea.
I don’t think giving someone a terracotta pot plant is that amazing of a gift. It could be pretty with the right plant in it, but just plain giving the pot is sort of just, I don’t know, a little bit lackluster, but these self-watering pots, they’re really beautiful, it’s a really pretty cylinder and they have served this different function that again, that utilitarian thing kicked up a notch is and that sweet spot that we’re talking about.
CAIRA: And so useful. Love a plant that just feeds itself.
ROSIE: Can we pivot now to one of my favorite categories, which is things you should definitely avoid? Let’s talk about the don’ts when thinking about gifting in general, but especially when it comes to affordable gifts. So Hannah, talk about the rules.
HANNAH: So, this is a real common pitfall this first one. Don’t ever gift an expert in a subject matter something in their category of expertise because they should buy themselves things in that category. My suggestion is to get somebody something that’s adjacent to their hobby.
An example of this would be like you’re not going to buy a runner running sneakers, you’re not going to buy them new leggings, you are not getting gear, avoiding gear. But something we see people really liking is we have these pint glasses that are etched with the marathon routes of all marathons. So, if someone has run the New York City Marathon or any marathon, that’s a nice sort of, I’m speaking to your hobby, but I’m not getting in gear territory.
That’s so nice and thoughtful. I’m not a runner, but I can imagine being a runner and finding that adorable.
HANNAH: Yeah, hobby adjacent is fine, but hobby gear, we’re avoiding.
ROSIE: Anything else Hannah? Any other don’ts?
HANNAH: Yes. So, size things that you need to know someone’s size. I just don’t think you should buy someone like a fleece because I don’t know how you want your fleece to be fitting. Another way if you are sort of a stylish person if you’re into things like that. There’s ways around this as well with one size fits all apparel, like a great sun hat. We have these white, beautiful, beautiful white cotton nightgowns, I know that sounds kind of not exciting, but they’re really lovely and they can be customized a lot of ways, and who wears a nightgown anymore? Nobody, but everybody might like to.
ROSIE: It’s giving, Dickens.
HANNAH: It’s giving, it’s giving, I know. So I think if something is a one-size-fits-all accessories or apparel item it could work, but in general size things are just so tough we tend to avoid them.
CHRISTINE: So, let’s recap the dos and don’ts of gifting in general, but specifically here we’re talking about great rules when you’re thinking about affordable gifts. The first one is you want to look for true value trying to find something that feels maybe more expensive than it really is. The second, it’s really fun to play with size, scale, and shape. You want to look for potentially something that’s novel, unexpected. And then the last one is a good route for people who utilitarian things is to look for a utilitarian upgrade. You really want to avoid buying people things in their hardcore hobbies and getting things that need to be sized.
CAIRA: Awesome. Now I’m not going to have a job though because you guys just told all the secrets. There it is, there it’s folks.
CHRISTINE: Okay, so we’re going to take a quick break and then when we come back we’re going to talk all about affordable ideas for a few different gifting categories with some specific suggestions. We’ll be right back.
CHRISTINE: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. This episode is all about affordable gifts. Before the break we talked with Hannah Morrill, our gifts editor about strategies for buying affordable gifts, the rules of thumb that you can follow and the things that you should really avoid. Now we’re going to dig into more gift recommendations within a variety of categories.
CAIRA: Yeah, y’all I’m really excited about this entire episode because I have four older brothers, really big family, everybody has partners, so buying more than two gifts really does add up. So I love the idea of just finding things that are not so pricey, but still really interesting and cool, and you can buy lots of stuff. So, I want to talk about the different gifts based in categories like tech, cooking, beauty, and gag gifts for the White Elephant and the Secret Santa Exchange things.
ROSIE: The office party?
CAIRA: Yeah.
ROSIE: Yeah.
CAIRA: Thankfully haven’t been drafted into that yet, but we’ll see. let’s just start off with tech because that is what all my brothers are into and selfishly I’m still fishing for ideas. So, do you have any specific affordable recommendations for people who are really into tech Hannah? Let’s break it down by under-25, and then under a 100.
HANNAH: Okay, you’ve got it. So, something I’m loving for this year, and I just had an experience with it, is a universal travel adapter. I don’t know if your brothers travel at all, but it’s under 25 and I think it works in 150 different countries. You can use it to plug in any kind of three prong thing, two prong thing or your phones. It is the Wirecutter pick and I think it’s an awesome gift. Have you guys seen it?
CAIRA: No, but I really, I love the suggestion because I actually just took a trip with all of my brothers to Paris in the summer and I was the only person with an adapter.
HANNAH: Yes.
CAIRA: Oh my gosh. The way that all of our phones were nearly dead and nobody could charge because we only had one charger essentially.
CHRISTINE: Oh my gosh, were you annoyed?
CAIRA: Yes.
ROSIE: Yeah, the card with the gift reads do better.
CAIRA: Okay, so what about under a 100?
HANNAH: Okay, under a 100. And in the really techy tech category I think is tricky, but I have a few tech light things I think could be amazing. We’re big proponents at Wirecutter of these Google TV streamer and so that sort of streamlines if they consume their media via streaming services. And if you are subscribing to more than two, a streamer can make that experience so much better. I wasn’t aware of this, but I trust our beat experts on this one and it puts all of your streaming places and it enhances the experience of it.
Another, if you’re wanting to go a little bit more fun, but it is a little piece of tech. We recently updated our guide to 3D doodling pen. So it’s kind of like a 3D printer, but it’s with the pen and you have these pieces of filament that go in it and you can draw 3D creations, that’s under a 100 and super fun for all ages. It would be a great gift to give because I think you could open it and use it and everyone could really get a kick out of it on the day of.
CHRISTINE: Those are super fun. I…
HANNAH: Would your bros like any of those?
CAIRA: Absolutely. I think they were all of them actually.
HANNAH: Okay, yay.
CAIRA: I got my mom a streaming stick a couple of Christmases ago. It was a different one. It was a Roku, which was our pick at the time, and now the Google one is our top pick and she loves it. And she has an older Smart TV that was lagging and so she had the smart interface, but putting that streamer stick in the back really made the experience of her TV better. And so I think even for people who are not really tech heads, I think that can be a really great gift.
CHRISTINE: That sounds great.
HANNAH: And I think it’s one of those things that you don’t know how bad you have it until you get a streamer stick, if that makes sense. We have a Roku TV and it takes 40 minutes to dial in the show that you’re trying to watch.
CAIRA: Oh my God, my TV does that too.
HANNAH: To dig through the menus and find it and God forbid if you make a misclick, you’re back to square one.
CAIRA: You just got to go to a new show, whatever you’re watching is done.
ROSIE: I’m like, it’s bedtime.
HANNAH: Streaming stick can be a therapeutic device as well.
CAIRA: Love it.
All right, so let’s go to the next category. I’m a cook, I’m into food. So this is my favorite category. So I’m curious, Hannah, what are some affordable gifts for people who like food or cooking?
HANNAH: Yes. So in the under 25 category, I thought about this a lot and this one’s like a blatant product placement moment, but it’s also awesome. I think the best cooking gift for this year is the New York Times cooking Page-A-Day Calendar. It is what it sounds like it is. Every single day as an illustrated recipe from the New York Times Cooking comprehensive library.
This gift serves so many purposes. I think it helps answer the question, what are we eating for dinner tonight? All of the recipes are also really well-reviewed and well tested, and as people have come to expect from cooking, I can’t think of anybody that cooks that wouldn’t really enjoy this gift. I am a 100% giving this. Would you like that Christine?
CHRISTINE: Please, yes. We just did an episode with Emily Weinstein about their new cookbook, which is really focused on easy weeknight dinners. Are the recipes on the calendar, the easy things that you could be like, oh, what am I making for dinner tonight, and that gives you the answer?
HANNAH: Well, it’s smartly organized. So the weeknight meals is more in that category, but then there are weekend meal might be a little bit more involved and more elevated I would say. And then it’s seasonal and it’s a total score of a gift. I am really excited to recommend that one.
CHRISTINE: And what about under 100?
HANNAH: Okay, under 100 there is a company called Mosser Glass and they make this three-piece mixing bowl set that’s well under a 100 and it’s colored glass, I think the one that we recommend is the jadeite color. So it would take mixing bowls and make them be able to be serving bowls as well. It’s like this heirloom company, it’s made in the US. I think it comes in more colors than just the jadeite. It’s really beautiful and again, it looks definitely 150 and it’s well under a 100, so that’s my favorite in that category.
CHRISTINE: We are also going to put all of these gift recommendations in the show notes. So, if you’re listening and where do I find this stuff.
CAIRA: No need to write it down?
CHRISTINE: Yeah, we’re going to put it in the show notes.
CAIRA: As a person who loves the utilitarian gifts, I think that sounds like it would be perfect because you can use it while you’re cooking, and then like you said, Hannah, just set your food out in it too.
ROSIE: Hannah, I love a good spa moment. These guys know that about me, I love a spa.
HANNAH: Yes.
ROSIE: I would love a spa gift. I would love a spa-related gift.
CAIRA: Hint, hint, hint.
ROSIE: Do you have any recommendations for people who want to gift something that will pamper a little bit? Maybe skin care or anything else that will make a giftee feel a little luxe?
HANNAH: So, someone gifted me this in the under 25 category. This, you can get this on Amazon and it’s another one of those things that just is better than you think it’s going to be. These Dr. Singhas Mustard Bath Salts. Maybe people are familiar with them. They come in a…
ROSIE: I hope it’s better than you think it’s be because you just said put mustard in the bath.
HANNAH: Okay, okay. Well you’re going to receive them as a Secret Santa I get from me and you’re going to be so happy because they are so lovely and so elevated and bougie and awesome. So, it comes in this blue jar and it’s super simple. It does have mustard which has, if you’re into this sort of thing, it has a lot of really restorative and healing properties.
I don’t know how to describe it. it’s absolutely lovely. It’s not overly slippery, it’s not overly fragranced, it’s just the really lovely experience. This is one of those cult following products, once you know, you know, and so that would be a really lovely under 25 gift.
CHRISTINE: I just bought them. I love it.
HANNAH: They are so nice.
CHRISTINE: It’s like $11 and it has this nice, it’s got eucalyptus and rosemary and I took a bath after lifting weights and I came out of the bath and I felt like new. It was really nice.
CAIRA: It’s amazing.
ROSIE: What about under a 100? So maybe a little bit more, we’re going up a half step in price, but keeping it under a 100. What are your recs?
HANNAH: Yes, so this is something that my colleague Sam found and loved. It’s a Moroccan brand called Saunter D’Orient. Please don’t come for me, I did not take French. And it is a body oil and it is absolutely lovely. I think it’s like a blend of six botanical oils and a handful of extracts. The smell is like rich lady at a hotel vibes, it is so lovely.
CAIRA: That’s Rosie’s vibe.
CHRISTINE: That’s Rosie.
HANNAH: That’s right where you want to be.
ROSIE: Rich lady, rich man at a hotel, rich.
HANNAH: Any rich person, rich NB at a hotel. I love this stuff. And another wonderful part about this one in particular that we like is it comes in this really architectural long rectangle bottle with this little globe top on it. So it’s inviting when it’s on your counter it feels, again, you’d be really proud to gift it to somebody. So that is our current favorite and you could use that as a bath oil, you could use it on your skin after you bathe, it’s really neutral. I think you’ll find it in our under 50 guides. So it’s really a great price point.
CHRISTINE: That’s a deal. Only 40 really is to feel like a rich hotel person.
CAIRA: Rich people approved.
ROSIE: I’m concerned that neither of you is writing this down. I guess you’ll remember for later.
CAIRA: You’re getting the mustard, sorry babe.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, you’re getting the mustard seeds Rosie.
So, there is this other category of gifts like Secret Santa or White Elephant, but I just want to acknowledge that gag gifts or funny gifts like this, seems a little bit, it’s the antithesis of what Wirecutter stands for in that usually these gag gifts are just something that you open it up and you laugh once and then you kind of forget about it or throw it away. So, I want to know what your approach is to these kinds of gifts because here at Wirecutter we are all about finding things that will last you forever and they’re gorgeous and you’re not just going to put them in the landfill essentially after one use. So, can you give examples of some good ones?
HANNAH: A 100%. So, The gift that we see that’s absolutely popping off this year is this 101 pooping puppy’s jigsaw puzzle.
CHRISTINE: Stop.
HANNAH: Again, that is the 101 pooping puppy’s jigsaw puzzle. And it’s just a puzzle that is a picture of 101 dogs going poop and everyone thinks that’s so funny and is gifting it to everyone in their life. But a puzzle is a great thing. It’s a great group thing that has use, but it has this, to use your word Rosie, this cheeky element too. That’s really fun.
CAIRA: That’s good.
HANNAH: We at Wirecutter also, we’re big Lego heads. I feel like we’re always suggesting and testing all these different Legos for adult kits. And the one that we’re loving for this year is, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s actually really beautiful, it’s this Lego cherry blossom set, and it’s really pretty. I think you build two bows of cherry blossoms and you could display those elsewhere. Do you need a Lego cherry blossom thing? No. But it is beautiful. It gives an activity and we’re big into that.
I think another thing that’s tricky about White Elephant gifts is you don’t know who the recipient will be. So you can’t buy things that are related to anybody’s interest at all. It has to be a real generic gift and this one right here is perfect in that category. It’s book that’s actually a couple years old, but it does get updated relatively frequently and it’s a real great one, it’s called The Lonely Planet’s Where to Go When book. It basically is just sort of like a trip planner. okay, so you’re thinking about traveling to Japan, it tells you what’s happening during those seasons.
Are the tickets, the right prices? Are there festivals? Is there what to see? And it has all these different destinations and I think it’s sorted by the time of year that you want to travel. If you’re feeling like being spendy or thrifty on the trip, it’s just an awesome manual. I think a lot of people could get a lot of use out of that and we’re seeing people really respond to that. And then the last one in this category again, under 25 that we are having a lot of fun with this year is this little snap-on retro phone converter. Basically you snap it onto your phone and it makes your phone into a point-and-click camera, which is a lot of fun and it also has a cool retro look, it’s good-looking as well. So, that’s another fun idea. Again, not something you’d buy yourself, not something anybody would have. You don’t need it, but it is useful and it isn’t junk.
CAIRA: Okay, Hannah, so we have one final question for you. It’s the question that we ask all of our guests. What’s the last thing you bought recently that you’ve really loved?
HANNAH: I actually didn’t buy this, I’m testing this for Wirecutter, but I think it’s awesome. I’ve been seeing on Instagram a lot, these lab grown sapphire necklaces, have you guys seen these?
CAIRA: No.
CHRISTINE: No.
HANNAH: Okay, it looks like a diamond necklace, but it’s not. It’s a lot less expensive, still expensive. I just think it’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen and I had been wanting to try it. We have gotten the feedback actually, if you can believe it, that our gift guides have too many budget picks.
CHRISTINE: What?
HANNAH: Yeah, I know. It’s Like you can’t…
ROSIE: So you’re finally getting my emails.
HANNAH: That’s right. We’re finally hearing you. I am trying out this lab-grown sapphire necklace from a brand called Dorsey and I don’t know, it is so lovely. I would absolutely recommend it to everyone. I think we’re going to put it in some of our Valentine’s gift guides. I think it looks great with a sweatshirt. I think any person that likes sparkly things would really enjoy this. So that’s the most recent thing that’s on my radar. Does that count? Even though I didn’t buy it?
CAIRA: I think it counts.
ROSIE: That absolutely counts. Good tips. Service journalism. Hannah, thank you so, so much for joining us. So many good ideas. Thank you, happy holidays.
HANNAH: All right, thanks guys.
ROSIE: Hannah is a real one. She has so much good advice.
CHRISTINE: And that’s just a fraction of the gifts that she recommends.
CAIRA: You can tell that she thinks about this 365 days a year.
CHRISTINE: Absolutely.
ROSIE: What are your takeaways?
CAIRA: Oh, I have to go with the adapter. I can’t believe…
ROSIE: For your brothers?
CAIRA: Yeah. I don’t know the next time we’re all going to be on a trip together, but you best believe I’m not leaving the country with them again, without them having their own adapters.
ROSIE: No more sharing your travel adapter.
CAIRA: No more sharing.
CHRISTINE: I’m going to buy that one for myself actually, I’m putting it in my own, stocking. My takeaway, is that I finally have permission not to buy things for people who have hardcore hobbies. I’m just going to avoid those hobbies and get something hobby adjacent.
ROSIE: I love that. For me, I’m embracing the utilitarian upgrade. There’s so many people who want practical things in my life for the holidays, but I want to give them the slightly elevated version of that. And so I feel like Hannah’s rules around utilitarian upgrade gifts makes a lot of sense to me.
CHRISTINE: Wow. Am I getting potholders for Christmas Rosie?
ROSIE: Yeah. You might be getting…
CHRISTINE: Perfect example of a utilitarian upgrade.
ROSIE: Well, if you want to find out more about Wirecutter’s coverage or if you want to check out the products we recommended today, go to nytimes.com/wirecutter or you can find all the links in the show notes. That’s it for us till next week. Thanks so much for listening, peace.
CHRISTINE: Here’s what’s coming up next week on The Wirecutter Show.
SAM: We all know the cliche of the 1950s husband giving his wife a vacuum cleaner for Christmas, right? Don’t do that. Do not give anyone a vacuum cleaner. I forgot to mention that rule.
CHRISTINE: Make sure you’re following the show on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss it. The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Editing by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pittman. Today’s episode was mixed by Kathryn Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoopp and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s deputy publisher and interim general manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief. I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin.
CHRISTINE: Thanks for Listening.
